BFE Welcomes Steve Castles
We are thrilled to announce that Steve Castles has joined our Best Fit team as Vice President of Institutional Partnerships. Steve comes to us having previously served as Director of Admission at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) and Executive Director of Admissions and Enrollment Management at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). With a proven track record of success and innovation at niche schools, Steve will be an incredible asset to our partners. He is a perfect fit to lead our institutional consulting division developing both domestic and international partnerships to find creative solutions to institutional challenges.
“I am honored to be joining the team at BFE and look forward to using my experience to help schools solve enrollment challenges, meet goals, and most importantly, best serve their prospective students and applicants. BFE’s personalized approach puts us in a unique position to help niche schools with their enrollment challenges, and I am excited to begin this new journey with such a great team!” said Castles.
In his role at BFE, Steve will be working with our institutional partners to understand their needs and find the right solutions, drawing from our team of consultants, advisory board members, and institutional connections. Steve brings a wealth of expertise in building admissions processes and strategies built to meet the specific needs of institutions and their teams. “Just because you work at a school where the enrollment numbers are small compared to a large state university, it doesn’t mean that the workload is the same percentage less, Steve says. “Smaller schools are often under-staffed and under-resourced and understanding how to best use the tools that you have and automating key processes are critical to operating the modern admissions office. As admission professionals, we need to be focused on making as much time as possible for personal connections with students and there have never been more tools at our disposal to help shift that focus back to the students.”
In addition to working with our institutional partners on enrollment consulting projects, Steve will also be our lead Slate consultant and will be available to help with all aspects of a school’s Slate system. Steve is passionate about finding ways to increase efficiencies within applications and processes. He implemented and managed Slate for both SFCM and CalArts, which led to dramatic increases in the speed with which both admissions offices operated and ensured that applicants had the best experience possible by making the application process easier to understand and removing barriers to completion.
Our BFE Vice President, Robert Borden, is excited to be working with Steve again, “I've known and worked with Steve for five years now. We worked together at CalArts, and through his excellent leadership, and creative problem-solving, enrollment grew notably during his tenure. I cannot think of anyone on the planet better suited to help any niche school solve its enrollment problems and turn its enrollment around, especially one whose focus is on performing and/or visual arts.”
We are so happy to welcome Steve to Best Fit!
Louise Borden
President, Best Fit Education, LLC
